


The Fool

by swanfrost



Series: tarot (tokyo ghoul week) [1]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Drabble, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-30
Updated: 2015-01-30
Packaged: 2018-03-09 18:16:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3259574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swanfrost/pseuds/swanfrost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Hinami met Kaneki (in the shop that was safe and familiar but wasn’t home), she was under the impression that he was quite rude and not gentlemanly at all. The second time Hinami met Kaneki, it was over a cup of steaming coffee and lots and lots of words.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fool

**Author's Note:**

> Written for tokyo ghoul week on tumblr...a long time ago.

**Day 1: Fool**

_first encounters; beginnings; innocence; foolishness; risk_

The first time Hinami met Kaneki (in the shop that was safe and familiar but wasn’t home), she was under the impression that he was quite rude and not gentlemanly at all. The second time Hinami met Kaneki, it was over a cup of steaming coffee and lots and lots of words. When she left Anteiku that evening, snuggled under the umbrella with her mother, with a spring in her step and a string of beautiful words bouncing around in her little innocent mind, she thought that absolutely nothing could ever go wrong.

That evening, Death approached her for the first time. Swooping in from the darkness all around, he’d gathered her mother - her precious, precious mother - in his arms. As Hinami, huddled in the shadows just around the corner, watched her mother leave in a brilliant explosion of crimson blood and burned flesh, tears slipping silently down the child’s still chubby cheeks, she thought her world was over. Finished. Gone. At the scene of death, standing in front of the crazy old man (who’d just slaughtered her mother like livestock, Hinami thought numbly), was the reaper. He straightened, still cradling her mother’s broken soul in his arms. Slowly, he turned and seemed to stare right into the little ghoul’s eyes.

 _I’ll see you again_ , he seemed to whisper.

And then, he was gone, gone with the passing of the wind, gone with her mother in tow, gone, just like the happiness that had been bubbling inside her just hours before.

Thus began a new life.

A life of days that seemed to drag on endlessly, of nights too quiet and too lonely; a world of tear stained pillows and fitful sleeps. She stayed motionless in bed, mourning underneath thin bed sheets, grasping for something (someone) just out of her reach.

But, she realized one day, as she slipped out of the bed for the first time in many weeks, falling into Kaneki onii-chan’s small but sturdy arms, feeling Touka nee-chan’s calloused yet slender hands rub comforting circles onto her back, Hinami realizes that she couldn’t be happier.

Kaneki-nii had hugged her tightly, tears welling up in his single visible eye and soaking through his eyepatch. Touka had scoffed slightly at the boy’s tears, but Hinami would swear she’d seen Touka-nee’s beautiful dark eyes water slightly. Stroking Hinami’s bedhead with shaking hands, that older girl had muttered quietly, _Please don’t ever scare us like that again._

(By the door, the old manager’s breathing evened. A small, relieved smile flickered across his face before he silently strode off.)

And, as the child clung onto the two with a trembling frame, Hinami realizes it was the first time she’d felt so deeply loved by someone other then her mother.

That night, after a calming cup of coffee and multiple forehead kisses from the Anteiku staff, she fell into the first real sleep she’d had in a long, long time. Just before slipping away, she thought to herself, maybe this new beginning wouldn’t be so bad after all.

\- - - - -

What a fool she was.

(Big brother Kaneki, spirited away by Aogiri, stumbling out with his body marred and his soul crumbling.)

(Big sister Touka, with her heart broken and her shelter destroyed. Touka, with her fiery mouth and beautiful wing.)

(Manager, captured and sentenced to death by the hands of his own kin. Manager, always calm and understanding, erased from this world.)

(Mr. Tsukiyama, lying on a cold, dead ground, tear-streaked face dried by the sun. Tsukiyama, with his funny way of speaking and odd smiles. Tsukiyama, now joyless and empty.)

(Kaneki Ken. Oh, kind, loving, stubborn, foolish Kaneki Ken, dying in a crazed state of mind, killed by the lance of a man who was just doing his job).

\- - - - -

Oh yes, it was the beginning alright. The beginning of the end.

 

FIN


End file.
